In a world where attention spans have fallen to mere seconds, every word counts – and high-quality writing makes the difference.
 
Enter “dense” content, which offers readers “a lot of good, perceived value in a little bit of time.” Professionally written, dense content helps you tell the best story. It also serves up SEO, usability and lead generation benefits.
 
Here’s what you need to know.

The Basics

Forbes magazine notes that “a new trend may ignore length entirely, focusing on providing as much information as possible in the smallest possible space – dense content – to appeal to readers.” (Some may say that the emoji is the perfect dense content, but don’t scrap the English language just yet!)
 
Dense content combines the best of both snackable and long-form content. Think of it as “snackable done right.”
 

•  works well because people generally don’t have time for long reads
•  offers a valuable in-depth, authoritative exploration of a topic

The Benefits

Snackable but low-quality fluff doesn’t provide value. People don’t read it – and they certainly don’t share or link to it.
 
High-quality dense content, on the other hand, gets much higher engagement from your audience. When you pepper it with the right keywords, it also helps your websites rank higher. Bonus: Easy-to-read dense content also increases your site’s usability/accessibility.
 
Long-form content has strong educational and thought leadership value. Consider using dense content as a feeder, driving potential leads to fill out a form for a longer content offer, such as an e-book or white paper. When your feeder is high-quality, you earn respect with readers and pique their interest in more content.

How To Write Dense Content

 
Always remember, quality is more important than quantity – especially when it comes to content marketing.

Jim Ellis has over 20 years of experience in marketing strategy and implementation throughout a variety of industry sectors. Since 1999 he has been with Signal, a digital agency based in Wilmington and Raleigh, North Carolina. Signal has proven strengths serving as the “local agency” for global companies, generating solid results in web design, brand identity, mobile app development, digital strategy and more. Jim provides counsel to many of the agency’s largest clients with an eye toward integrated communications and a vast knowledge of both traditional and modern practices. As a songwriter and musician with a business degree, he believes his artistic/corporate “dual personality” gives him added perspective to be an effective liaison between clients and Signal’s talented creative team. Originally from Ohio, Jim graduated from the University of Richmond with a B.S. in Business Administration.